Tuesday, November 30, 2010

So I received my approval copy for Cube Wars today. As you can see in the video it is shiny and awesome. There are a few formatting issues that are too minor for me to change, and one that looks like it was done on purpose. Maybe when I'm rich and can therefore buy the pro version of Adobe Acrobat for font embedding... I am approving this copy for retail on Barnesandnobles.com though it has been available on lulu for days and you should totally buy it there because it makes me four times the money.

From the Mouth of Lulu:

You have approved your book, The Cube Wars Anthology, for distribution, and it is being entered into the database of the largest US book wholesaler.

Your book will be available to order from leading online and retail book outlets within the next 6-8 weeks. Here are some tips to help you with your listing at online retailers:

Monday, November 29, 2010

As you know (because you read my blog religiously), Taro Says will be a collection of fan stories about the Sabres. Should I get the go-ahead to write this, I will use every means and method of communication available to gather stories, input, and information. For the sample chapter that I am going to include in the proposal, I will largely be using my friends and family. Hey, that's you!

The Sample Chapter will be Chapter 10:

Chapter 10: And So it BeginsYour First Sabres GameStarting Young and Being Raised a Sabres FanStarting Old and Finally Seeing the LightEarly MemoriesShepherding Young Fans into the Fold

Anything anybody wants to contribute to the above would be great whether it's a long write-up or a short blurb. My goal is to change contributions as little as possible, correcting only grammar and flow. Preserving tone is the most important part of this book. Should the project be green-lit, I will be soliciting submissions and interviews for all chapters.

Alex writes...
My first Sabres game came at probably one of the worst times to start going to Sabres games. It was during the 2007-2008 season, the year after we'd lost Drury and Briere. At one point I decided I was hell bent on seeing a game at HSBC Arena so I told my friend to get tickets. Unfortunately I was a poor college student at the time (I couldn't even pay my friend for the tickets until a month later) and was forced to miss out on the Winter Classic, so we went to the very next game, a January fourth date against the Senators.
We parked in some $8 lot uptown and took the Metro down to the Arena. I remember that particular journey because in the packed trolley car we ended up next to a rather talkative African American man whose girth covered two whole seats. Luckily he was the friendly type and we enjoyed a friendly, if somewhat unhinged conversation about the Sabres. Just as claustrophobia was starting to get the best of me the car came to a halt and I was face to face with the Arena for the first time.
Moving along like cattle, we made our way inside, then up the escalators to the 300 level, taking time to ridicule the rather creepy "glamour" photo of Adam Mair on the way up. I had been to Ralph Wilson Stadium several times, so I thought I would be prepared to step into an area I knew was far more vast than my mind was currently giving credit. I was not. As soon as we walked past the usher to stare into the rapidly filling confines of HSBC Arena, my breath left me. Truthfully it still does. Being there, even being mired near the peak of the 300s is a sort of special that no words can describe.
The game itself began like many Sabres games did, with the Senators racing to a three goal lead. Ryan Miller was promptly pulled and Jocelyn Thibeault was inserted in his place. Promptly, the Sabres began scoring, and my friend and I were sure to let Thibeault know that the goals were surely a product of him being in net. Late in the game, Mike Ryan (remember him?) tied the game on a shot from behind the net that bounced in off Ray Emery's back. The crowd went nuts. The 'Emery' chant that followed was probably the loudest I heard the arena until I attended a playoff game in 2010. Unfortunately, the night was not to end a happy one, and Dany Heatley and company stuck the knife in and twisted it, skating away with a 5-3 Senators victory.
Even with a loss, that first game still resonates with me because it was the beginning of something special. It was beginning of a relationship that would see me bring my family together, would see me meet a ton of great people, and eventually would see me achieve one of my dreams in writing this book.

What the Project is: As some of you know, Taro Says is to be a collection of fan stories about our Buffalo Sabres. The following is my rough chapter outline. I haven't figured out quite how I'm going to order things within each chapter yet so it's not set in stone. Also, the organization will (assuming I actually get to pursue this) changes based on what I get from the people I interview. I might find that one chapter is getting tons of stories, or people might want to talk about something I hadn't even considered, so things could change for that reason as well.

Where the Project Stands: The typical process for a non-fiction work is to craft and submit a proposal. Obviously there are other factors at play here such as involvement by the NHL and the Buffalo Sabres that I need to hammer out, but one thing at a time. I have contacted Paul Wieland, author of "Then Perreault Said to Rico..." which is similar in that it's a collection of stories from Sabres players and team personnel regarding the team's history (ignoring everything after about 1995 even though the book was written in 2008). I'm hoping Mr. Wieland can at least give me some direction as to the steps I need to take in order to make this a reality, and at most can get in touch with some publisher or team representative and be all "this kid has a great idea, throw dollars at him now," and then I write this and it's awesome, and the Sabres have basically given me everything in life.

So yeah, read...

Part I: Great Moments in Sabres History as Seen by the Fans

Chapter 1: Before There Were SabresGrowing up with Hockey
Rooting for the Buffalo Bisons

Chapter 2: Getting a TeamWhere Were You When You Heard the News?
Did Things Change in Buffalo?

Chapter 3: Humble BeginningsGetting Gilbert Perreault
The French Connection
A Swift Rise to the Top and the 74-75 Cup Finals

Chapter 4: Settling InThrough the 70s and 80s
The Departure of The French Connection
Lindy Ruff as a Player
The Playoff Wins Drought

Chapter 5: The Glorious 90sCelebrating May Day
Alexander Mogilny, Pat Lafontaine and Dominik Hasek
Farewell to The Buffalo Memorial Auditorium
Lindy Ruff as a Coach
The 97-98 Conference Finals
The 98-99 Cup Finals and No Goal

Chapter 8: 2006-2007, Being the Class of the NHLHigh Expectations and the President's Trophy
Steamrolling the Isles
Difficulties with the Rangers and Chris Drury and Max Afinogenov Play Heroes
The Senators get Retribution

Chapter 9: Looking for Better DaysLosing Briere and Drury
Missing the Playoffs
Two Tylers and a Look into the Future

Part II: Great Moments in the Lives of Sabres Fans

Chapter 10: And So it BeginsYour First Sabres Game
Starting Young and Being Raised a Sabres Fan
Starting Old and Finally Seeing the Light
Early Memories
Shepherding Young Fans into the Fold

Chapter 11: Through the YearsTogetherness and Sabres with the Family
Growing with the Team
Favorite Players Through the Years
Friends You Made at Sabres Games

Chapter 12: Add a Lot of Blue, a Little Gold, and Cook With PassionThe Best Stories from Inside The Aud
The Best Stories from Inside HSBC Arena
The Best Stories from the Plaza
The Best Stories from the Bar
The Best Stories from Home

Chapter 13: Thanks for the MemoriesBidding Farewell to the Aud
The Greatest Game You Ever Saw
Remembering Ted Darling
Remembering Rick Jeanneret
Chapter 14: The Hopeful FutureWhere Will You Be When the Sabres Win the Stanley Cup?

I'm usually not in the habit of reposting stuff, but this article is brilliant and it describes my personality to a tee.

An introvert who is silent in a group may actually be quite engaged—taking in what is said, thinking about it, waiting for a turn to speak—but will be seen in the U.S. as a poor communicator.

This gives a pretty good account of how my time was with my previous employer. I can't even count the number of times I had to literally talk over someone in order to get any words in at all. It was very evident, even from the beginning, that there was a certain divide in communication and perceptions due to differing personality types. In short, my bosses had absolutely no idea on how to deal with an introverted person. Some of the reasons I got for being laid off were that I "never looked engaged," and often "didn't look excited" which are reflections of my personality. I can't feign excitement just for appearances sake, nor do I feel I should have to...well...apparently I did.

Above all, "we hate people telling us how we can be more extraverted, as if that's the desired state," says Beth Buelow, a life and leadership coach for introverts. Many introverts are happy with the way they are. And if you're not, that's your problem.

The Habs come in last on this list because their fans aren't so much ugly as they are really obnoxious looking. It's a known fact that Montreal is deep within Wannabe-France, also known as Quebec. The reason that posers are much more annoying than actual supporters of a cause is because they tend to go all out in appearance and attitude to make up for what they lack in heart. Thus Habs fans step up the French hipster look to a whole new level.

This is a Habs fan.

4). Toronto Maple Leafs Fans

Whereas Habs fans are inevitably bombarded with their douche culture, Maple Leafs fans simply eat and fight their way into fat disgustingness all on their own. You know what they say in Toronto, "if this van's a rockin', I'm probably just searching for a donut under one of my fat rolls." Having been to a number of Bills and Sabres games I've had a pretty decent amount of exposure to Leafs fans. Torontoans flock en-masse to any and all Sabres games because they've pissed away too much of their money on beer and cigarettes and Sidney Crosby Team Canada jerseys to masturbate into to be able to afford seats in their own barn. I would guess that at least 30% of opposing fans in HSBC arena for non-leaf games are Leafs fans. They won;t spend their money on their own team, but they will spend it on other teams, just to be cocks.

3). Philadelphia Flyers Fans

A rare negative fan list where Philly doesn't take the top spot. If the criteria was being assholes, or being stupid, I'd have to put Philly up there. Philadelphia has one of the worst literacy rates in the country which means that Sully there next to you at a Flyers game probably purchased his jersey through a complex series of clicks, grunts, and hand gestures. Look, most northeast fanbases are chock full of fat guys who can't spell their own names because it's fucking cold here and you can only write three letters in the snow with piss anyways. But a lot of them also have plenty of attractive fans that tip the scales back to a more manageable level. Philly just doesn't have enough.

Ladies, your choices are fat guy, and fat guy with moustache.

2). New York Rangers/Giants/Yankees Fans

Oh my god. Obvious Jersey Shore jokes aside, these people are fucking disgusting. Going to a Bills - Giants, or Sabres - Rangers game is like letter a newborn child use a freshly pressed suit for a diaper. Now I know that Bills fans especially are not an attractive fanbase but the fans that came out of the woodwork for the Bills - Giants game I went to a few years back made me think Buffalo was South Beach. Holy fucking shit, it was like a casting call for The Hills Have Eyes. The amount of crabs was so rampant it was like a goddamn zergling rush. They have running water in New York City now, right? Use it. Oh my fucking god. Still, the NYC teams do have hot fans. Their crotches may in fact be biological weapons, but you can look at them at least...in a HazMat suit behind three panes of bulletproof glass.

Too clean to be a giants fan.

1). Pittsburgh Steelers Fans

Every Pittsburgh Steelers fan is 350+ pounds and carrying food. No exceptions. If you aren't, then you're not a fan because you clearly haven't received your official membership yet. Steelers fans are horrible. They're one of the biggest bandwagon fanbases in sports, which NOBODY gets. The cowboys, patriots, and colts are all accepted to have bandwagon fans, but Steelers fans "travel well." Bullshit, every fat bastard in every bumfuck small town needs to find some redeeming quality to their lives so they jump on the bandwagon along with a rapist pedophile and a Samoan tranny.

When I was at the New York State Fair this past year, the most common team jersey was the Pittsburgh Steelers. In a day and a half at the fair, I probably saw 10-15 of them. Every single one of them was overweight and most of them were morbidly obese. Every single one of them was fucking ugly, and every single one of them was carrying food. Even the guy I saw IN THE MORNING ON THE WAY INTO THE FAIR had a paper plate of fried dough. How the fuck does that even happen? Where the hell did he get it, was it just tucked into his asscrack for safekeeping? I wonder if Troy Polamalu knows how many fat white racist men (who would mistake him for a chocolate figurine and eat him) have his jersey. Maybe that's why he has the long hair, to keep the fat bastards from being able to read his name. Not that they can read anyways.

I’ve seen a few comments recently that one of the reasons for the Sabres’ struggles has been the consistency of their top like of Vanek, Ennis, and Roy. I don’t really feel as though this is accurate. Personally I believe it’s inconsistency from the second line combined with the third line failing to chip in that’s doomed us. Time to find out!

Figured I'd give a rundown of where I'm at with everything since a few people have been asking.

Past:

The Chosen - My vampire novel. The Chosen has been finished since the beginning of the year and is being queried. (For those that don't know, the process for getting something published begins with sending a query letter to prospective agents.) I have an agent currently looking at sample chapters, but have not heard anything back yet.

Arnett Tanner Wants to Die - ATWtD is about a world in which physical death is medically cured and legally outlawed and a man, Arnett Tanner, who wishes to end his tedious life. I finished ATWtD about a month ago, maybe longer and began querying. A few weeks ago I ended up adding another chapter and am continuing with the querying process. For this novel, I also have an agent who is currently reading sample chapters, but I have not heard back from them yet.

Present:Cube Wars - CW is about a war that takes place in an office building. Yes, I am serious, no the plot is not serious. I finished edits this past week and took the steps necessary to self-publish through lulu.com. The book is available for purchase on the sidebar to the right. I have made the necessary adjustments to make the book available on Barnes and Nobles' website (and in stores if requested) but those won't go into effect until I receive a physical copy of the book (currently shipping) and approve it. Even so the only differences are that the retail (second) edition has an official title page and copyright page.

Correction: CW teaser and purchase link available in the appropriate page at the top.

Near Future:
Since Cube Wars is finished, I am moving on to the next two things down the wire.

Taro Says is a Sabres related book proposal that I have done some work on already. I need to do a little research to figure out who to present the proposal (when finished) to whether it's an agent, the Buffalo Sabres, or the NHL. I'm keeping it largely under wraps until I have a bit more direction, but a few people know what the content will be. Writing this will require a large amount of fan input, so you can expect many updates on this in the future.

Skankarella/Gotharella will be the next fictional work I write. It will be a modern take on the classic Cinderella fairy tale featuring an outcast and societally undesirable title character. I feel like the Disney story is valueless and that the basic moral is "pretty girls marry princes." Using the judgmental step-family, I want my story to focus on how it is perfectly acceptable to be different.

I ordered the Disney movie on DVD for research purchases. I thought about going to wal-mart and buying it along with a barbie doll, a six pack of Bud Light, condoms, and lube just to fuck with the cashier but I don't need to be on any internet watch lists

Far Future:

Succubus Story (half formed ideas have shitty titles) will feature a Succubus (essentially a sex vampire) as the main character (go figure). I have about a page worth of notes, mainly on Succubus mythology so the idea is very undeveloped at this point. I am fairly certain that the Succubus will be a lesbian, and that she will have a fetish for menstrual blood (yum).

Kissing Ellen King has been "next on the list" for some time, but I keep putting off. The story has been difficult to write because it is essentially autobiographical, but I do actually have a chapter outline and a few pages written. I have literally volumes of notes, just having trouble finding the right voice.

I have a vague idea for a sort of chase novel. I can't really elaborate much more than that. One party will be fleeing and the other attempting to hunt them down, but I don't know why, or even which is the protagonist. The idea stems from wanting to do something that takes the characters to several different locales.

A Zombie short story may be written between or while working on any of the above. Because zombies are fucking awesome.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Look, the Anaheim Ducks have always had one of the worst logos in sports. From the stupid little cartoon to the foot, everything has looked retarded. So I opened paint and set aside ten minutes to prove that it isn't that fucking hard to make a decent ducks logo.

There, that is fucking awesome, even though my style of art is don't try so if someone says the drawing is shitty, you can claim it was on purpose. See Anaheim designers, it isn't that goddamn hard.

I'll just come out and say it since it's probably pretty obvious anyways. I don't like Ryan Miller. Actually, I should rephrase that. I don't like Ryan Miller beyond liking him because he is a Sabre.

It wasn't always this way, I used to love his snarky postgame interviews and get just as excited as all the fanboys and girls with every big save, but now things are different. I think in terms of preparation, no one beats Ryan Miller. I think in terms of knowing the game, no one beats Ryan Miller. I appreciate what he brings to this team, but he is definitely not one of my favorite players, or even one of my favorite Sabres.

I'm not really sure what happened. I think it's two-fold. At some point I feel like Miller stopped being Ryan Miller Sabres goaltender, and started being Ryan Miller, National Icon. He does ESPN photo shoots and national interviews now when before he was only known in Buffalo and East Lansing. I'm not one of those fans who is bitter and wants their fringe sport to remain a fringe sport just so I can be "cool" or whatever. I think popularity and growth is good for hockey, and I think Miller being nationally recognizable, if only for a short period of time, is good for hockey.

But perhaps his visibility comes at an unfortunate time, contrasted with poor performances by the Sabres in the 2010 playoffs and at the start of the 2010-2011 season. There is probably no relation there, but I can understand how fans can be ticked off when they see the Sabres sucking and Miller putting on a goofy hat and playing Caddyshack. I'm really torn on this one because I hate it when fans think that players should "only concentrate on hockey" and not have a shred of personality or fun. But I'd be lying if I said the Caddyshack thing didn't irk me a little. I'm not saying my lack of Miller love is justified or logical, but this may be a part of it.

The second part is that after seeing various players get the scapegoat label, Max, Vanek, Hecht, Rivet, Vanek, Tallinder, Vanek, Stafford, Vanek, Lalime, Vanek so often and seeing Miller constantly escape that label is frustrating. Look Miller is a great goaltender, and his mistakes are few and far between, but everytime he lets in a soft goal, it's "oh well Miller bails us out all the time so he's allowed once in a while." It's kind of like if I were to say about Vanek, well he's one of the all time leaders for the Sabres (9th) in game winning goals and bails us out plenty so he's allowed to screw up every once in a while. Or if I were to reference Pominville's Iron Man streak, or Stafford jumping Neil after the Drury hit. None of these are valid excuses, and the fact that Miller usually plays well shouldn't be either.

Earlier in the year after seeing Miller yield goals to Hossa (2), Kovalchuk, and Byfuglien, I made the comment that Miller as a superstar himself should not be shitting the bed against other superstars (at least not consistently). A few people had an issue with this and I don't understand why. If Stafford or Vanek or Pominville gets stoned by (say) Brodeur, they get ripped apart. If Montador is made to look like a fool by Byfuglien, it's his fault. If Miller is sniped twice by Hossa, it's oh, well Miller is usually good. I call bullshit on that line of thought and not many others do. I suspect this is the reasoning behind about 80% of my apathy and "meh" attitude about Ryan Miller.

But such things are always subject to change. I was once high on Max and Pominville and I didn't always harbor a love for Vanek. Perhaps Miller will punch Stajan again and earn his way back into my good graces. Maybe he'll make another priceless comment about how he likes beating the leafs because he likes the thought of them riding two hours back to Toronto miserable. That would be pretty awesome.

Friday, November 26, 2010

I feel that as a normal red blooded American, there are several products I could heartily endorse through my personal experiences.

Wegmans White Unscented Facial Tissues:
I like to keep the things I wipe my face with fairly simple. The upsides to these particular tissues is that they don't feel like sandpaper, and they won't make your nose and mouth area smell like minty Vicks abortion. Seriously, we had those Vick's tissues at work. The first one I used I thought smelled kind of nice, but by the end of the day I felt like I had snorted a vat of cough syrup.

Good tissues are important to someone like me who blows their nose roughly once every eight seconds. It's even worse when I'm sick. Right now my trash can looks like I have not stopped masturbating since birth. If you're not grossed out by now, let's move on.

Holmes HeatSafe Space Heaters:
I live in the basement whose temperature varies between tauntaun snot and the inside of the abominable snowman's anus.

Even during the summer, this thing is going the majority of my waking hours. I don't know what it is about me, perhaps my poor circulation in combination with my high blood pressure, but I am freezing almost all the time. It's even worse in an office building since most are kept at around a balmy 44 degrees and feature operation room level lighting that makes me feel even worse. Layering up helps, but only so much. There are times that I just don't feel like wearing a hoodie over another hoodie over a long sleeve shirt over a T-shirt.

Crush Brand Strawbery Soda:
This is the blood of christ, not that alcohol infused piss water called wine.

Hats:
I like hats, I feel that I could endorse hats as an article of clothing. Like... "Buy hats! They make your head feel happy and your hair feel oppressed!"

Not long ago, someone referred to my interest in human sexuality as "my sex kick," and with the implication that it was merely a new and temporary occurrence. It is neither of those.

I'll give you a little sex history about myself so you can see that I'm a relatively normal human being, albeit perhaps with a bit less of a filter than everyone else. I was brought up in a house where sex was always relatively taboo. I remember being scolded for making penis jokes as early as the first grade.

RANDOM ASIDE! In the first grade, I remember the old school song:

"Joy to the world, the teacher's dead.

We barbecued her head!

What happened to her body?

We flushed it down the potty!

And round and round it goes...

And round and round it goes...

And round and round and round it goes."

People remember this, right? Anyways, we changed a few of the lyrics.

"Joy to the world, (random male)'s dead.

We barbecued his head!

What happened to his weiner?

We sucked it up the cleaner!

And up and up it goes...

And up and up it goes...

And up and up and up it goes."

Watching my first grade teacher standing behind my friend as he sang this (totally my lyrics by the way) with a look of horror that grew exponentially larger is one of the funniest things I can remember. I wish I could go back as an adult so I could watch that scene unfold. The best part is that my young self saw the situation before it even happened and decided even then that things would be much more awesome if I just let him destroy himself.

Back to our regularly scheduled story. Neither of my parents was very religious when I was a kid, although my mom is now a devout church goer (her Jesus kick), so it's not like there was a real intrinsic basis for sex being so rarely discussed.

What made matters more complicated is that as I grew older, my exposure to sex was largely from my parents cracking jokes around me that I didn't understand, sometimes at my expense. I remember when I was maybe eight or nine and my dad made a comment about "spanking the monkey." I laughed, hell everyone else in the room was laughing. Besides, even if you don't know what it means, isn't spanking a monkey kind of hilarious anyays? (Just picture it.) That delightful scene was followed by both of my parents badgering me for the better part of an hour because they were convinced that I was...I don't know, a serial masturbator or something. (Not yet!)

I'm not bitter about the situation, I can imagine that the possibility that your child knows anything about sex before you're ready to deal with that reality is downright terrifying. The situation was handled poorly, but I can at least understand why. Unfortunately this would be the predominant method in which my parents brought up sex for the next several years, teaming up to badger me about the cornucopia of things they were sure I already knew.

Truthfully, I was pretty ignorant. I saw all the bullshit films they show you in elementary and middle school health, but anyone who knows anything about sex-education in the United States knows how helpful those were. I didn't have a concrete idea of what sex even was until the sixth grade when my mom gave me "The Talk."

On a Sunday after church, we headed to Borders Bookstore at the mall. On the way, my mom informed me that we would be having a discussion about sex. Since every discussion on sex until that point involved both of my parents making fun of me together, I was less than thrilled. I still remember the book I bought that day, Animorphs #27, which didn't help the situation because, hey, Rachel was hot.

I remember being miserable for the entire shopping outing, hoping my mom would forget about the planned discussion. The talk itself was pretty mundane; she told me the basics, opened a book and showed me a few pictures and it was relatively short. I did finally learn what a "69" was, thus beginning my obsession with oral sex. I don't recall what the birth control tone was. I'm fairly sure she told me that sex was meant to be between two people who loved each other, and shouldn't ocurr until after marriage, but I honestly don't remember. I do remember her telling me not to trust devious women when they say "the birth control is taken care of." Hmm, maybe mom has some wisdom after all.

It was a good talk and it solved several mysteries for me at the time. As a rather nerdy child who wasn't exposed to anything more violent than the Power Rangers, my relationship with anything sexual was pretty much non existent for a while. In sixth grade, I remember having my first crushes, back when I felt the ultimate activity with a girl was putting an arm around her. (It's still quite nice.) In seventh grade, a few girls started growing boobs, which I noticed, but didn't particularly care about. Finally, in eighth grade, I noticed that still more girls had boobs and they were quite nice to look at. I have to laugh when I think of myself because I have not always and probably never will be the most socially adept person. I stared. A lot. I never really caught any flak for it, but I have to believe that at least a few people thought I was a complete perv. (Still true!)

Ninth grade wasn't a whole lot different, aside from one thing...I learned to masturbate. I didn't have a clue in hell what masturbation was, and generally only nodded and smiled when my friends joked about it. Then, one day I was in my bedroom fooling around with rope. (I told you it wasn't a new thing.) I didn't really know why at the time, I just knew that it made my penis hard and that felt good. When I was starting to hang myself upside down from my top bunk, my penis freaked the fuck out. It started spazzing white shit everywhere, which in turn led to me to freaking the fuck out. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?! A few days later while in the shower I started to put the pieces together. Hey maybe that's that whole masturbation thing. Unfortunately, int hte beginning, I was about as skilled as my last girlfriend which led to conspicuous forty minute showers, but gradually my manual acumen began to increase. After time, I found that it was much more fun to include looking at pictures of naked women in this endeavor though I still had yet to explore porn.

In tenth grade, I developed my first real crush on someone, that is to say I wanted to explore her as a person. (Not to say I was shallow before then, but how much of a personality does anyone have in middle school?) She was utterly uninterested, but I was so oblivious, I didn't see it. Even though I had learned to masturbate, sex was still far from my mind. She was equal parts skinny and thick and had nice full lips that I desperately wanted to put mine on (instead of another part of me between). My main method of pursuing a girl was basically to be shy and awkward and write poetry alone. Not the most successful strategy. Over time I began to see that she was a pretty poor match for my personality and I moved on. My strategy for eliciting the attention of females didn't really change so I was single through to senior year.

Then I had my first girlfriend. (Names will be changed to protect privacy, and most of the people that read this will have no clue who I'm talking about. Still a few people might have some objections to what I'm about to write. My response is that truth is an absolute defense to libel, and that the following is true as best I can remember. So long as what I write is true, it is protected by the first amendment. My intent is not to embarass or belittle anyone, it is to reflect on my own past and explain some of my present. In short, it's not about you, it's about me.) It was actually pretty slick game on my part. Mary was in one of my classes, and from the beginning of the year I decided I would like to date her. Somehow I gathered the boldness to begin talking to her (it helped that I already knew many of her friends) and we quickly struck up a friendship. My intrepid course continued and I wound up asking her to the first dance of the year.

It's funny because at the time my main worry was "shit, I don't just want to go to the dance with her, I want to date her, how to I transition from a date to dating?" Fortunately I didn't have to do anything because she assumed it meant we were already dating. (This style of assuming would come in handy later as well.) It was a good first relationship, good first kiss, first makeout session and everything. Her friends were the type of straight-edge, preppy people that I liked to hang around with so everything was peachy. There were two main problems: after a while the relationship plateaued, and I never developed strong feelings for her.

This was the very first time the sexual gears in my mind started to turn. After having reached the makeout stage for several weeks, my brain was bored, and I wondered where to go next. At one point I made an advance and was quickly rebuked. I don't want to sound like a terrible person and say that was the reason we broke up, but that would probably be a lie. She was and is extremely nice, but too vanilla for my increasingly deviant tastes. Finally I solicited the advice of my friend Mike on how to dump someone. He told me to let her down easy and suggest taking a break, and then dump her after a week. (Note: this is horrible advice. It's like ripping off a bandage. Do it quick you pussy.) Anyways, I did just that, and my brain was again wracked with how to turn "break" into "break up." She made that assumptions for me though, and my work was done. (Yay assumptions!)

About that time, or probably a little before, I was introduced to the world of BDSM. I can remember fantasizing about rope since I was probably aorund four or five years old. Finally, with the help of the internet, I wanted to find out what this really meant. I started googling something like "people being tied up" which led me to bondage. From then on it was a click-fest through literally everything I could find, some of it arrousing, some of it horrifying (needles *shudder*).

After another uninteresting relationship, I went to college. Holy shit high speed internet. I can download actual videos! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER! At this point I was still in the "no sex before marriage" camp. I don't know why, I never was particularly religious. I think it was just because it was what I had been told, and I hadn't thought to question it. I started talking to a friend of one of my college friends, who happened to be fourteen or fifteen at the time. At one point she talked about how badly she wanted to fuck someone. My initial response was "you're only fucking fourteen and you want to have sex? What's wrong with you?!" After thinking about it for some time, I realized, "I'm eighteen and I don't want to. What's wrong with me?" I began to explore just why I thought that waiting until marriage to have sex was a good idea and found that I couldn't come up with a single reason to support the notion. It was a completely baseless and arbitrary thought and I quickly killed it.

Being in close proximity to my friend Mike (high school and college) defintely played a part in opening me up. Mike was and is nuts, and was pretty much willing to spout off any vulgarities tourettes style. "Wait a minute, I can say things like poop, and penis, and people won't look at me like I murdered a kitten (like my parents would)?" Well this is new.

The best part is that we did this right before one of the breaks so the parents of just about every freshman saw it when they came to pick up their kid. Awesome.

Thanks in part to Mike being Mike, and in part to simply growing up, I began to accept the deviant aspects of my sexuality instead of trying to hide from them. Not a lot of people know this, but when I first started looking at bondage porn, I was extremely aroused, but also got horrible guilt-driven headaches. I just couldn't come to terms with my deviancy. It was a constant struggle to either embrace it, or hide from it, and after years of choosing the latter, I'm glad I wound up with the former. Being a weirdo is far preferable to being a child raping priest acting on buried desires that grew deformed because they couldn't be accepted.

Another huge part of my transformation was the band t.A.T.u. I discovered their music early freshman year and was immediately smitten. The whole "I am who I am, I'm not going to hide, and fuck you if you don't like it" attitude resonated deeply with me. Here I'd spent years beating myself up for being a certain way and liking certain things that were not only okay, but a lot more normal than I could have expected. (Being dominated is the #1 sexual fantasy.) For a long time I felt that it was my fault for being a weirdo when it was really everyone else's fault for being judgmental assholes.

Society is a dangerous thing because it likes to come up with arbitrary rules that everyone is supposed to follow. Hell we have an entire phenomenon based on arbitrary rules. It's called religion. (I'm sorry, but I'm not putting any stock in a several thousand year old book that is the supposed words of an invisible man in the sky. If that makes me faithless, then I guess it does.) The absolute worst thing that can happen is for someone to feel bad about doing something or being a certain way because an unnamed majority frowns upon it.

I grew exponentially in college. The biggest thing I took from the experience was not the education, but in the increasing comfort I felt in merely being myself. I think, sometime in 2008 or 2009, meeting another friend with whom I am very close brought about the final destruction of any shame I felt in my interests. To see that there are people just like me is extremely liberating. To see that there are people that like things that make me a tad squeamish is fascinating and it brings a smile to my face, because as much as I delight in being a weirdo, there is some comfort in fitting in within certain realms.

At the ripe old age of twenty-one, a few months after I was out of college, I had sex for the first time. It cemented what I had suspected all along, "this shit is awesome." And though the girl is a skank, and a part of that disapproving vanilla society that is so dangerous (and that I like to lambaste), I cherish the moment and the advancement of myself. It has been frusterating, having such kinky desires and being unable to act on them so far, but I hold out hope that my time is coming.

So where does that leave us in regards to my allegedly recent "sex kick?" As I've said, my interest in bondage dates back to the age of four or five when I used to dream about rope. That is as much a part of me as anything. While I am a recent arrival to the sexual world, I think that many of those feelings have been there all along, merely waiting until the time when I was ready to let them out. Sex is still taboo at home, although at least now my mom only frowns when I ask my sister if she's taken it in the ass yet in front of the rest of the family. (Hey, I've spent years being awkward and hating it. Now it's my turn to make everyone around me feel awkward and loving it.)

I don't hide the fact that I'm into bondage, or that there is very little sexually that I wouldn't at least attempt. I don't hide the fact that I enjoy porn, and if people think that makes me a loser, then that's their problem. I have a comfort in being myself that I haven't felt before and that is awesome. If someone called me out on a particular unpopular, nerdy, or weird interest in the past I would have blushed and tried to hide my shame. If someone did that now I would mount a verbal defense (because assault is only cool if the subject likes it) that would leave them in the fetal position.

In the words of t.A.T.u., "You shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved...just like everybody else does."

Quite simply, anyone who know me, know that I love porn. I have a multifaceted relationship with porn. Obviously, I enjoy it for the sexual content and for erotic reasons, but I also enjoy the artistry. The line between erotica and pornography is constantly blurred and I find that fascinating.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

My friends Ogre, Agent 23, and Snowman and I were in Sandusky in the late Summer of 2009 enjoying the Cedar Point amusement park. After the park had closed for the season, we found ourselves seeking some nude entertainment for the night. Now if you know where Sandusky is, then you know it is basically bumfuck, Ohio. Using Agent 23's GPS, we searched for Adult Entertainment, and ended up finding a place called Rainbow something or other. Predictably, this was a gay club, which a call quickly confirmed. Yeah, not our thing.

After a while we found another establishment that was about a half hour drive into even more rural Ohio. When we finally get to the road the place claimed to be on, we ended up driving past the supposed location with no red lights in sight. We called the place, asking where the hell it was, and confirmed that we were on the right street.

About five miles later, we finally saw a run down shack of a building with a sign identifying it's purpose. The place looked like pestilence and dilapidation had come to fornicate. From the inside it looked somewhat nicer, but still like the opening of the plot to some horror movie.

The setup was pretty simple. You walked through a hallway that opened up to the bar. Then there were a few tables, and finally the seating and stage area. At the bar, there were a few older gentlemen paying no attention whatsoever to the strippers. There was no one else in the place at all. When we got there, the bartender asked if we were the guys that called. I didn't really hear his question at the time, so I told him no. I'm sure this perplexed his bumpkin mind.

The strippers, who must have been bored out of their minds, immediately loved us. Once the young woman on stage finished her routine, she informed her stripper friends that there were actual clientele, and that they were young and not creepy (comparatively). Having the full attention of half naked women is nice. There were three of them that were attractive, Nadia, a slender brunette who took an immediate liking to me, a slender blonde who was on something that made her extremely bubbly, and a slightly bustier slender blonde who was on something that made her rather quiet and aggressive.

We took our beers down to the seats near the stage and tried not to think about what was on them or had been done in them. The girls, attention starved were all over us from the get-go, especially the wide-eyed Frosty who had never been to a strip club before. (To be fair, neither had I, but this fact was not made known). Roughly thirty seconds into the routine one of the blitzed girls spilled Agent 23's beer all over the stage. These were not A-class strippers.

Then the moment of the night came. The way Ogre, Snowman, and myself were seated, we had a view of the door of the stripper's room. Agent 23 did not. After the attractive women finished their dances, we saw the next dancer. Agent 23 did not. Now to be fair, her breasts were very nice, but the rest of her can best be described as "man the harpoons." (She was not curvy-big, she was just big.) Neither the slender Snowman, or myself, or the somewhat more massive Ogre were terribly looking forward to watching a woman significantly larger than us (at least Snowman and myself, not many women are larger than Ogre) on stage, so we bolted for more beer. Agent 23 on the other hand assumed we were coming right back and was unaware of the impending disaster. We were not.

I can only imagine the look on Agent 23's face as the hefty woman took the stage, but I think it was probably a combination of fear and agony. You see the slender girls had no qualms about laying atop any of us. Were this to happen again, Agent 23 might meet an untimely fleshy death. Now in a normal strip club, such a woman dancing might not be a terrible occurrence, but we were in Sandusky, Ohio. Agent 23 could not merely excuse himself, leaving the large woman an audience of several others. He was literally the only one watching, and being the nice guy that he is, humored her by viewing her entire dance (an image that I'm sure will be burned into his mind forever).

This would dramatically alter Agent 23's strip club strategy for the rest of the night. He began getting up after every dance to either go to the bathroom, or replenish his beer supply so he didn't get stuck in such an unfortunate situation again. Luckily for us, two black gentlemen came into the strip club, and they were rather enamored with the larger lady (not stereotyping, just telling you the facts).

The three strippers that hung out with us the entire night were adamant about giving us private dances. My girl, Nadia, was the most attractive, and also the most un-fucked up of the three. Win. There wasn't much that happened after that would be considered entertaining. Nadia's choice of conversation topics while she was grinding on me topless was interesting to say the least. I was intrigued to know that she was a mom as she was sliding her fingers inside of my waistband, but I didn't really need to know.

Otherwise it was a pretty good night, and a good first visit to a strip club. We only stayed there a couple hours until near close and then wandered back to the hotel.

Imagine a world where you're resigned to a meaningless cubicle existence. Day after day, you're a prisoner in an eight foot by twelve foot box, wasting away. The corporate world is an unkind monster, chewing up new workers as fast as they can graduate and regurgitating them as monochrome lumps of anonymity. What can you do but type away, neaten your little stacks of sticky notes and requisition more cheap pens that never work?

You can fight back. Grab your staplers and your paperweights. Saddle up your ergonomic chairs, it is time to go to war.

Alexander S. Bauer is trapped in such a world. He watches in politically correct, business casual horror as his projects are turned over to another, supposedly more qualified group of brown nosing employees. But Mr. Bauer is not one to take adversity sitting down. He will not watch his career go calmly into the night. He will resist.

Bauer takes the moment every office drone wishes they could and dry humps it into submission. Joining a team of similar misfits, he begins to plan tactical strikes against his enemies. It will be the battle against evil colleagues that every office nobody wishes they could wage. It will be the deadly offensive against management every belittled worker bee wishes they could execute.

The cost is a little steep at $15.99 but it was the best I could do unless I wanted to scale down fonts to reduce the number of pages, and make it impossible to read.

Update: The Cube Wars Anthology has been updated to meet with the stringent requirements of retail publishing. This version will not be available for another two weeks or so. The only things the retail version has that the lulu version doesn't are a title page, copyright page, and a blank page at the end of the book, so you're not missing out on anything. Also, I get significantly more royalties if you order it through lulu (around $4) as opposed to another retailer like Barnesandnobles.com or Amazon (around $1).

Ugh, I have to do this again? Really? You people are that stupid and that short-sighted that you can't see the benefits of a website like Twitter? Guess so.

To be fair, Twitter isn't for everyone. I can fully understand why someone (who understands its usefulness) wouldn't want to be on it. There are other ways to get news and other ways to interact with people. But seeing so many people bag on it, especially when they denounce it as a website devoted to flooding your friends with the minutiae of your daily life.

That's not what it is. Okay, for some people, that is what it is, and I will join the masses of Twitter haters in ridiculing those people. But for others, Twitter is probably the most useful website on the internet.

I like hockey, I like movies, I like talking with my friends, I like actors and actresses, and I like writing. I don't know of anywhere on the internet where I can combine those things...except Twitter. But that's not all. As a hockey fan, signings and big news fascinates me. Tell me, what's a better option, scrolling through ESPN.com, NHL.com, and Puck Daddy all day, or taking a glance at Twitter and finding the big stories in half the time and doing a tenth of the work.

Twitter is probably the best thing to happen to the journalism industry since that whole printing press dealio. What do journalists need to exist? Readers. What gets their material to the readers in the fastest and most consistent manner? Twitter. People are busy, they don't want to continually check a website for an article by their favorite columnist, or pick up a newspaper, not when they can receive updates on their phone.

Yes, Twitter has its base in being something trivial and annoying, but if you can't at least see the usefulness, then you're an idiot. Sorry, sucks to be you.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Ran through the entire process on lulu.com just to be familiar with it and everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. It looks like formatting might not be that much of an issue.

What will be an issue, is the cost. Right now if I go to a size 10 font for everything, the minimum price will be around $19. I think I can play around with the spacing and knock that down quite a bit, we'll see. I'd like to get it down into the $10 range if possible and still be able to make a profit on it. (Roughly $4 per copy through lulu, $1 per copy through another retailer such as Amazon.)

I plan to finish the final edits tomorrow and from there it's just a matter of fiddling with everything so that it looks good without being too expensive.

If you’ll remember, two weeks ago we looked at the production percentage of each forward versus their contract percentage out of total forward money. Now it might be a little soon to be coming back, but with the team playing well for a change, I felt it was worth another look.

From the looks of things around the Buffalo fansphere, you'd think otherwise. One of the reasons I like The Goose's Roost most of all the Buffalo blogs is that even when the Sabres are playing bad and hockey is depressing, they keep things in perspective. They're not prone to hating on players, whether the ire is deserved or not, and they always give me something to think about. While I might post the occasional hyperbolic rant about how Connolly is really an agent of the Senators sent to destroy us, I try to keep things relatively even keel here as well. The main reason for that is the very title of this post.

It is supposed to be fun. That's why we watch the games, right? To entertain ourselves. I understand that losing is frustrating and sometimes emotions blot out everything else, but let's not forget why we're here. Seeing a Sabres win is great, but is that the only reason we go to HSBC arena? If it was, I think the Sabres would sell a lot more single tickets and a lot fewer pairs and group packages.

There is more to being at HSBC than just watching the Sabres play. For each fan it is a unique experience. My journey starts about two hours away in central New York (hopefully changing soon). You'd think I'd get bored during a drive I've completed over a hundred times, but I don't. I always stop at the Clarence rest area, smiling and greeting my jersey-clad brethren, and look for planes while passing the airport. I grin at the sign welcoming me to Buffalo and proclaiming it "An All America City," and pretend the appropriate ramp onto the 190 only leads to one place, called Downtown Buffalo-Canada. (I'm a dork.) Then there's the parking on Scott Street, walking through the throngs of people up to the arena, and the usual trip to the Sabres Store.

Sometimes I just walk around, see if anyone is wearing any ridiculous jerseys, and laugh at the over-serious black and white glamour shots of our beloved Sabres.

Bring me your soul...

I try to remember (some times I have to try harder than others ) that I'm not just there to watch several toothless men flit about on the ice, I'm there to have fun. And these things are fun. Whether it's buying new apparrel, enjoying some delightful (and overpriced) arena food, bringing a sign and waving it at every camera in the building, or wrapping yourself in blue and gold Christmas lights with a portable power source (you just wait), HSBC is a great place to be.

We're not Sabres fans just so that we can watch them win, but sometimes we forget that. Sabres hockey is one of the greatest things you can share and every Sabres fan reading this probably has at least a dozen great stories about them and their buddies watching a Sabres game. The Sabres are the one thing that every member of my family agrees on. I'll bet several of us have even begun great friendships at Sabres games, or Sabres related functions. I know I have, and I owe the organization respect and loyalty for that fact alone.

Remember that the next time you go to a game. You're not just there to watch hockey, boo the opposition, and complain about the officiating, you're there to have fun. So go do it. Heckle fans in opposing jerseys, buy yourself a beef on weck, go hug the Thomas Vanek photo, make a goofy sign, paint your face, try to get on the jumbotron, encourage the 40 year old bearded man next to you to sing along to Miley Cyrus, take photos next to the six foot tall head of one of your friends.

Ah, I was a young freshman at Clarkson. The first semester of that year I had a class called GFI which was the mandatory English class for freshmen engineers. In that class there was a girl who will go by the name of Ann in this story. (I drew a nudie pic, that's why you need to click. I'm sorry. Please accept my apology of cartoon boobies further down.)

Today, I realized the only times my boyfriend ever says "I love you" are after he screws up or when he wants a blowjob. FML (Woman)

Maybe you shouldn't be so stingy with the blowjobs.

Today, was my four year anniversary with my husband. The night included going to a restaurant where he got drunk, getting kicked out of said restaurant, and refusing to have sex with me because I'm three months pregnant, and he'd "be doing his kid." I've been cock blocked by my unborn child. FML (Woman)

That's what you get for marrying a dumbass.

Today, I found a pregnancy test in my wife's purse while looking for a quarter. I haven't had sex with my wife in 8 months. FML (Man)

Should have divorced her seven and a half months ago.

Today, while eating dinner with my family, I found out my boyfriend recorded me screaming while having sex with him on my phone, and set it as my ring tone on high volume. FML (Woman)

I'm sorry, that's just hilarious.

Today, while at dinner, I told my boyfriend that I wished he liked sushi. He replied, 'I wish you liked anal.' FML (Woman)

Pwned.

Today, my twin sister sent a nude picture to her boyfriend, who then forwarded it on to everyone else. Everyone else thinks it's me. FML (Woman)

When I read this my mind immediately conjured an incredibly conjured a complicated statutory rape situation in which one twin sent nude pictures of herself while she was of age in the few seconds/minutes before her sister also became of age.

Today, I jokingly asked my husband if he had ever cheated on me. In the most sincere and honest tone, he said "if I ever have or ever will, there's no way you would ever find out. I love you too much to lose you", and gave me a hug. FML (Woman)

If you gave Pandora's box to a woman, that shit would be opened before it left your hands. They're horrible at not barking up trees they know they don't want to climb.

Today, I was having sex with my girlfriend when I came. She got pissed and slapped me really hard for cumming inside her because she didnt want to get pregnant. 1. I was wearing a condom. 2. Shes on the pill. 3. We were having anal sex. FML (Man)

I learned the hard way not to fool around with stupid people too.

Today, my boyfriend and I decided to have sex for the first time. While we were undressing each other, he said, "Wow, if we have children, you're gonna have to shave, or they'll die from rug-burn as they come out!" FML (Woman)

Why do people (not just women) think it's okay to not shave? Seriously, that shit's nasty.

Props to Phil over at BBG for finding this. (A bit of warning: These are hockey guys. They swear...often.)

It's a series of e-mails between NHL Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell and NHL Director of Officiating Stephen Walkom. Some if it touches with maligned (and now unemployed) official Dean Warren, but the majority of it is Colin Campbell bitching about penalties that were called on his son, Gregory Campbell, then a center with the Florida Panthers.

The discussion starts with Campbell complaining about the inadequacy of Warren, and then devolves into two separate complaints regarding penalties called in seemingly innocuous and unrelated games. The author of the commentary (in between e-mails) does a good job of pinpointing which games Campbell is referring to by tracking Campbell's comments about the penalties and the situations in which they were called. This detective work reveals that both incidents involved penalties called on his son.

That implication, that an NHL official is both able and apparently willing to use his power to attempt to influence the outcome of games, is disturbing in itself, but I actually want to pick at another point. I think anyone can read the transcript and commentary and have an appreciation for how much of a shit this makes Campbell, and thus I have little to add.

Jumping away a little bit, back in May I wrote this article about the NHL adding it's first European referee, Marcus Vinnerborg from Sweden (resistance is futile). The point I made then is the one I want to jump on now. The more fresh faces in the NHL officiating ranks that break up the old boys club, the better.

I get the sense that among NHL referees, especially older referees, there is this explicitly defined concept of what hockey is, and the games are called according to that mental picture rather than the actual rules. I feel like certain "hockey plays" that should be penalties are let go because of this thought floating around the heads of older NHL referees.

The best evidence of this came right after the lockout. For the first two seasons, NHL officials called things basically as they should, and the inflated offensive numbers reflected this. Then for some reason, the NHL took an "eh whatever attitude," and started to regress that old notion of hockey began to reassert itself. This is where I take umbrage with certain excerpts of Campbell's and Walkom's discussion.

Walkom to Campbell:

"open ice hits are generally allowed on one on one battles"

What the hell is this, generally allowed? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Who cares if something is "a hockey play," or "generally allowed," a penalty is a penalty. Shouldering a guy to the ground as the two of them glide towards the puck is interference and should be called as such.

Campbell to Walkom

The 3rd call on [player (Gregory Campbell)] was while they were down 5 on 4 and on a def zone face off vs that little fake artist [player (Marc Savard)] I had him in [city (New York as coach of the Rangers)] biggest faker going. And Warren fell for it when he grabbed his face on a face off. Your supposed to see the act, not call the embellishing act.

Look, I agree with Campbell that diving is a pox on the NHL and that referees need to do a better job of recognizing and policing it. But I think it's bull that Campbell brings up the situation. A penalty is a penalty. This whole trend of not calling something because "it's the last minute of the game," or "it's the playoffs," needs to be shown the door.

Walkom's immediate reply to Campbell

that.s funny yet not funny..I think we have that data but it may work in his favor..that.s why I.m against data and more about IT..he doesn.t have it, never had it, and is average at best, probably never get it,

This pisses me off as a stats nerd as well as a rational human being. If the stats don't support your argument, you need to get a new argument, not ignore the stats and develop intangibles. Do you see what I mean when I say the NHL's old guard has this imaginary romantic concept of hockey to which they like to adhere? Do you see how this is a problem? (Also, how do these guys rise to such important ranks? They're as literate at twelve year olds.)

Campbell to Walkom

this was awful. 1:30 left in 2-1 game for [team] and [player] scored with 2 second left to tie it up them won in OT. F*CK

Again, context doesn't matter. A penalty is a penalty is a penalty. A few e-mails later...

Campbell to Walkom

Keep Warren and gas this shithead. 90 seconds left and he calls a weak penalty.tripping. Makes me sick. If I was at the game I would have had to fine me.

Colin Campbell is clearly being rational...

I think we can all agree that Campbell is way out of line, and that there is a clear conflict of interest when he has to do ANYTHING that involves his son. But we all know how sports parents can get. I umpired Little League for years, and I've seen more than my fair share of idiots (and one incident that involved the police). It's tough to say how serious Campbell is in the e-mails and how much he's just being Gregory's dad. It's also hard to say if Walkom is serious himself, or just letting Campbell rant at him while he plays the good friend and nods. A few of the jokes he makes seem to suggest the latter. At the very least both men acted unprofessionally and should be disciplined.

Colin Campbell was interviewed Thursday evening on NHL Network about the situation and his answers were weaselly at best. He said that his comments weren't directed at Savard (which is clearly untrue), and were instead directed at embellishers in general. He mentioned that the NHL has a "diver's list" and that these players are watched. (Which I personally find disturbing even though certain guys are going to garner certain reputations and those are going to affect the officials regardless.) Campbell finished by saying that he wasn't attempting to exert any influence (which is debatable) and that "no one is capable of exerting such an influence" (yeah right).

Isolated incidents of idiocy don't worry me too much. Colin Campbell acted like a jack*ss in this situation, yes. But I don't think Campbell acting like a jerk, even when his son is involved, are really all that important. The implication is frightening, but I think the reality is closer to Campbell's quote, that such an influence (if it exists) is very small.

I feel that the bigger issue is the "old guard" mentality that seems prevalent in the NHL. Any time officials are doing anything other than calling what they see, its a recipe for disaster. It's the reason I never wanted to know the inning or the score of any game I umpired. If it's important (the game being over or there being a mercy rule situation) a coach will make it obvious. Otherwise my job is to make the calls and let the players play the game, not stick to romantic notions of how it "should be played." That's why I was so happy to see Vinnerborg come to the states (though I'll curse my TV the second he screws the Sabres). He doesn't have all this "good old boys" and "hockey play" and "you don't make a call in that situation," and other such nostalgic nonsense floating around in his head. He just calls what he sees.